the 10th china sme festival kicked off at the wuzhou guest house in futian district, offering an exchange platform for small and medium-sized enterprises (smes) from across the country with forums and keynote speeches scheduled for the two-day event.
"currently, there are over 1.3 million smes based in shenzhen," said xu qin, mayor of shenzhen. he said that the city government has put in place a range of supportive policies to bolster the development of smes in shenzhen, including setting aside earmarks totaling up to 10 million yuan (us$1.44 million) for smes.
qin zhihui, deputy director of the country's industry and information technology ministry's sme department, said there were more than 20 million registered smes nationwide as of the end of last year, and the number continues to grow this year.
"the government can help smes in three ways — building a favorable business environment, setting up resource-sharing platforms and providing necessary services for them," qin said.
li zibin, head of the china association of small and medium enterprises (casme), said that domestic consumption should replace foreign trade and investment to play a leading role in fueling china's economic growth.
"china's economy still has a huge potential, and smes should adapt themselves to the 'new normal' economy and forge ahead along the path of innovation," he said.
li has been offered a lifetime achievement award by the world association for small and medium enterprises to honor his dedication to promoting the development of smes in china.
the festival was co-organized by casme and the city government and attended by over 1,000 guests consisting of government officials and representatives from smes nationwide. the guests will visit several shenzhen-based enterprises such as huawei, tencent and byd this afternoon.
